


The Shadow of a Tear

by Wiarda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Platonic Romance, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiarda/pseuds/Wiarda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Reichenbach Fall, Sebastian is supposed to keep an eye on John Watson, to ensure that Holmes is truly dead. If not, the rule still stands; he has to shoot the doctor. But things go different than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shadow of a Tear

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first "longer" work (yes, I know, it's still quite short for the AO3 standards but I'm a very lazy writer), so please don't be too hard on me. Also, I'm not English and this isn't beta'd, so chances are that you'll find a mistake. Don't be shy and tell me if you do find one, so that I can change it, please.  
> Also, feedback is always welcome. I'm still learning. (:

Those useless walks were going to be the death of me.

My clothes were soaked and every gust cut into me like a knife, but taking shelter wasn't an option. Not when he was still outside as well. Thick raindrops ran down my face, dripped off my chin and fell on the ground, over and over again. After a while my whole face started to feel numb and my motions had become stiff, but I had to follow.

This was the thirteenth time this month I walked this route. A walk for about thirty minutes through the calmer parts of London, one Watson seemed to be making regularly. Every day the same time, pace and pathway. By the day of today I had developed my own route, one that wasn't exactly like Watson's but one quite parallel to it, so that I could keep an eye on him. My throat started to itch; I had the urge to cough, but it was the best not to draw any attention to myself.

Not like anyone would recognize me. The red hoodie I wore might’ve been soaked, but it was still very useful for hiding my face for a big part. From a distance I looked like no-one special; just a man with an old leather jacket, hooded, and with worn jeans that were slightly too long. No, it was simply the best to remain a faceless man. Yet I knew I couldn't stay one forever.

One day, Watson would notice. There was a moment, and I was sure it was coming, that Watson would finally see that someone was stalking him every moment of the day and he would get alarmed. He would try to hide from me, try to ban me out. Probably warn the police as well. Not that that was such a big problem to me, but it made my job unnecessarily more complicated.

I turned into an alleyway, taking another route only to meet Watson up the road again. It was so easy to stay unnoticed, I would almost take more unnecessary risks to make this a little more interesting. But then the chances of failing would get bigger too, and I wasn't going to screw up my boss' last order. In the time I didn't have to keep focussed on the doctor, I focussed on the question that kept bothering me; what would I do when Watson found out about my existence? How could I avoid it? The more I thought about it, the more questions seemed to pop up and not a single answer was given. Far too soon, I found myself walking behind the short man again, until I realized that he'd gone straight ahead instead of turning left, which was against his normal route. Slightly alarmed I followed him, until I held still abruptly.

He was walking to a pub.

I didn't know much about grieving. I knew the process theoretical, but my lack of experience stood in my way of truly understanding it. Luckily, it was enough to find an answer to all the problems that had formed in my mind.

It was a relief to be freed from the endless rain drumming on my face and soaking of my clothes until I was chilled to the bone. The pub was warm and crowded and easy to find comfort in. It wasn't difficult to figure out why Watson'd gone here; it was the perfect place to relax and leave your worries at the doorstep. It was also the perfect place to meet new people, people that could eventually grow out to be good friends. Friends you could trust, friends you could rely on. Friends you could tell everything. Friends that wouldn't give you a weird face, even if you told them your dead best friend had become alive again.

It wasn't hard to find him in the crowd. He'd taken place at the bar, and the bartender just handed him the beer he'd ordered. He was resting his head in his hand, a sign of pure exhaustion. A sign of weakness. He, as ex-soldier, should know better than throwing all his defences down while there was no one there to catch his back. On the other side; this current position was very, very convenient for me.

“Hey.” I walked up to him, and the man looked up. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Watson shrugged and took a sip of his beer. “If you want to, who am I to stop you?”

I took place on the empty stool next to him, ordered a beer myself and then focussed on the doctor again. Jim would've known exactly how to take care of this; he was very charming when he needed to be. Mostly to convince people, he was brilliant at convincing. But Jim wasn't here, and I was left to take care of this my own.

“No offence, but you look pretty damn fucked up, mate,” I said after a long silence. My original Australian accent hovered a bit through, now that I didn't try to hide it anymore. In the meanwhile, Watson had started his second beer of the evening. He gave a humourless chuckle.

“Matches good with the chaos in my head.”

I pulled my eyebrows up and blinked a few times, faking interest in his story. My acting skills weren't as convincing as Jim's were, far from it actually, but in the state Watson was in now, he would probably buy it anyway. “Row with the wife? Annoying employer?”

The man smiled, but it looked forced and painful. Almost like it hurt to move those muscles. “Not exactly. It's a long and complicated story, it doesn't end very well.”

I did my best not to snort. Long and complicated? _My best-friend-slash-boyfriend committed suicide, and now I'm depressed._ Not long nor complicated, if you'd ask me. I made a forced expression as well, raising my eyebrows as if to ask further – and again, he fell for it. “Oh? Come on, spit it out.”

After one short glance in my direction, Watson seemed to find the situation safe enough to talk. He told me his story, from the moment he came back from Afghanistan to the moment of now, throwing some direct quotes in now and then. It took me everything to keep acting interested and surprised by everything he said, and not to mouth some of the parts with him. I probably knew more about him than he did about himself; after a little research and a nice chat with his drunk sister, Jim had figured out his whole life story.

Watson told me everything in a very slow pace, needing the support of more alcohol at some rougher points. Some ridiculous points, in my eyes; when he talked about the incident at the pool, for example. Why would he need help with that? I'd been there, I'd seen how it was and nothing spectacular had happened. Despite that, I forced my face into a shocked expression and managed to throw a “no way!”, “that's bloody insane, mate!” and a “that's terrible” in the conversation now and then, just to keep him talking.

After a while, we finally came to an interesting point. The Fall itself. Of course, I knew my side of the story, and I knew what part Watson had played in that story. What I didn't know, was what he knew about it. Or, better said, what he thought he knew about it.

“He just stood there, on top of that building – you know St. Bart's right? Fucking tall, I can tell you,” he slurred. Apparently, the alcohol began to work quite well. Then, his voice softened a bit. “He called me before he jumped. He told me it was all true, that he was a fake.” He turned his face to me, pain visible in his eyes. “And I still don't know if it's true. I never will. I don't believe it, but I'll never know if I've been lying to myself the whole time.”

We remained silent for a while, staring at each other. Watson with a look of pain, caused by the memories that were coming back to him, and I looked at him in a way that could only be described as respect. True, honest respect. Despite everything he'd been through, this man still believed in his former flatmate like a kid in Santa. Although I didn't really feel sorry for him like I told him, it seemed fair enough to show him some deference. “Wow. No wonder you look so rough. Man, that's terrible!”

The corners of his mouth turned upwards as if he smiled, but the rest of his face wouldn't cooperate. “Yeah, well... I think there's no other option than moving on.”

I copied his expression, but in a pitying kind of way. “You'll get through this.”

Watson's attempted smile disappeared, leaving nothing but emptiness. “The point is, it's too goddamn hard to let go of something when it has become the one thing that made your life special.”

I thought about that for a while, and then decided to change courses a bit; time to show a bit of myself, in order to gain some more from Watson. “Believe me, I know how that feels. But you'll manage.” I shot a quick look at my watch, only to notice that it was already two AM. Actually, I was off duties now; there was someone else to watch him for me during the night. He'd probably find him soon enough, and I didn't want any of my men to see what I was doing now, so I stood up. “I gotta go, sorry mate. I wish you the best of luck and maybe we'll see each other later, or something.”

I walked to the door with big steps, but not too quick because of the alcohol, until I heard a loud; “Hey, what's your name?”

I could've given him any false name, or not answered at all, but instead of that I turned around and smiled at him. “Sebastian, pleased to have met you, Captain Watson.” And with those words, I disappeared into the bitter coldness of the London rain again.

***

Two and a half day later, I met Watson again. His behaviour hadn’t changed; every day he followed the exact same schedule, he never met up with other people and practically locked himself up in his flat or the surgery, with exception of his daily walk outside. It looked as if he was grounded, but he did this all voluntarily. Even worse; it was as if he was clenching onto it. Onto the never-ending, dull rhythm of his colourless life.

It was just after dinner time when the man went out of his flat, quickly zipping up his jacket. The rain and storms had stepped aside for dry weather, but with an icy cold, merciless wind. Not very comfortable either, but easier to deal with. It surprised me that Watson was out so early, since his walk normally started around eight. Ten past eight, to be precise. I followed him nevertheless, half-expecting him to deviate more from his original strict planning.

It didn’t take me long to figure out where he was going. Watson’s behaviour was a bit off, he kept staring at the the spot right in front of his feet as he walked and although he wasn’t carrying a bouquet with him, I was fairly certain he was heading to the graveyard nearby.

I was right. A few minutes later he was standing in front of the marble headstone, with his hands folded behind his back. Something about his posture gave a clear sight on Captain Watson, the former army doctor instead of Doctor Watson, the man with the love for tea and woolen jumpers. He looked stronger, because he forced himself to be that way. Even though the man in front of him was dead and buried six feet under, he couldn’t show him weakness. It was against his nature.

There was one grave, not so far from Holmes’, that I knew quite well. Although I didn’t visit her very often, I knew exactly where my niece was. Or actually, where her body was rotting under a thick layer of dirt. It was probably rotten away already, since she’d been dead for over five years now. Heart-attack. She’d always had problems with her heart, from the moment she was born. It was actually a surprise that she managed to live seven full years without nearly dying every month or so.

She didn’t have a headstone. She only had a wooden sign with her name on it, half-covered in mosses and a plastic ladybug on it. Thanks to the weather of the past few years, her name was barely readable. ‘Charlotte Adr na M’, it read. Not that she would have minded much; she hated her name. It was too long for her taste.

“Sebastian?” a voice sounded. I turned around immediately, and saw John Watson look at me. Automatically, I tried to find traces of tears, but there were none. Odd. But then I remembered myself that this side of John Watson wasn’t likely to cry. This was Captain Watson after all. “What brings you here?”

He walked over, and I gestured to the smaller grave in front of me. “Charlie does,” I said, my voice not as thick as I wanted it to be. Watson frowned.

“Charlie?”

“My niece.”

“Ah.” The man shifted uncomfortably on his feet, letting his eyes wander over the overgrown flowers in front of the sign. “Sorry for your loss.”

I waved it away. “It happened ages ago and she had a good life. A short one, yes, but she was happy. I just come here once in a while to keep an eye on those forget-me-nots before they start to grow on the neighbours’ eternal resting places.”

“Her parents don’t come here often, then?”

I was impressed. Somehow, I had assumed that Watson’s mind was too fuzzed with sadness and pain to come to that conclusion. “My sister and her husband live in Australia. They visited me once around five years ago, and Charlie got a heart-attack out of the blue. She died here, and it was too expensive and too much fuzz to get her body back to her home. So, here she is.”

Watson nodded. “I see. So, er- are you in for some tea? You look like you’re completely frozen.”

Although the message behind that offer was so clear to me that he could just as well said straight in my face that he wanted to get out of here and didn’t feel like going alone, I only gave him a weak smile instead of a sarcastic response. “Yeah, I’d like a cuppa now, actually.”

Watson smiled, or at least attempted to, and turned around. “My flat isn’t far away.”

***

After two weeks, having tea with John had become a habit. One of his strictly scheduled habits, of course. Although he had made surprisingly much exceptions to his standard ‘rules’ last week, he had now fallen back into his own safety zone, which meant that he had to do the same stuff every day. I wasn’t sure why that comforted him, unless he had some sort of mental disorder, but we never brought it up. We often talked about me instead, since John seemed to get sad and distant every time I attempted to change the topic to his life.

I never thought I’d have to challenge my imagination this much as a sniper. I had to make up a whole new life story for myself and it had to be convincing enough to trick the doctor. It wasn’t as easy as it’d been that first night in the pub; John was not, unlike his sister, an alcoholic and I hadn’t seen him drunk again after that night. Therefore I actually had to put some effort in it. And, more importantly, I had to remember it all so that I wouldn’t contradict myself. That was harder than it sounds.

“What do you do for living?” John asked. A month had passed since our first real meeting and somehow we had managed to avoid such topics for quite a long time. Now, there was no escape left anymore.

I touched my neck - a habit from my childhood. It was a subtle sign of nervousness, you would have to know me for a long time to know what it meant. “Believe it or not, but I used to work in Australia. We have a family business, you see. My grandparents were all huntsmen on the countryside. They helped farmers to get rid of nasty rabbits that ate their vegetables, or foxes that hunted down every chicken they could find. I moved to England ten years ago to find a better-paying job, but that didn’t work out the way I wanted. Luckily, my family was kind enough to give me all the money they owed me for hunting ten years under their name, so it’s not a problem that I’m unemployed.”

Somewhere in John’s eyes, I could see a spark of true interest in my story. “You’re a hunter? So you know how to handle fireweapons, guns?”

I shrugged. “Grew up with it. It’s a part of my childhood. I fired a gun for the first time when I was eight.” That wasn’t a lie. None of it was, really. I had spent my whole childhood in Australia, shooting all sorts of wild animals with my dad, uncle and aunt. My sister never liked hunting and felt sorry for the ‘poor bunnies’, so I had to go in her place when I was still almost too young to even look at a gun.

“That’s also a way to grow up, I suppose.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “What, do you mean that some kids don’t slaughter animals every day?” I joked. John chuckled half-heartedly.

“Not everyone, no. I grew up just above London, with my parents and my sister. I wasn’t the most quiet, obedient kid London had ever met, but compared to Harry I was an absolute angel. She started drinking and smoking at a very young age and never stopped doing that, never listened to our parents, turned into a so-called ‘stone butch’ as soon as she found out that she liked girls, which was quite soon, and even managed to ‘steal’ two of my girlfriends through the years. No shooting, no dead bunnies, just a lot of family fights and a rebellious sister.”

I tried to picture it, to place my younger self in such a situation, but it felt so strange. Emma appeared to be the absolute opposite of Harriet Watson; my sister was always quiet, very clever, behaved the way she should and there had been times that in my eyes, she was the biggest wimp that ever set feet on the Australian soils. She never made the wrong choice, seeing as she rarely had to make choices, and all by all I liked to describe her as boring. Emma was so incredibly boring compared to Harriet.

“A rebellious sister can be interesting, I guess. Depends on how you look at it,” I said. John looked at me for a while with an expression I couldn’t define, until he shrugged.

“Guess you’re right. Harry and I never got on well, so I’m a teensy bit prejudiced.”

A silence fell. It wasn’t a pressing one, and even if it was, I wasn’t the one to end it. John seemed to me the type of person that wanted to keep the conversation going, while I preferred to keep my mouth shut if I didn’t have to talk. I tried to remember the last time I had a nice, decent chat with someone. A chat that wasn’t about which rifle was the best or how many men I’d killed that month. I couldn’t think of anything since I moved to England and started to work for Jim.

Naturally, it felt a bit weird when I left John’s flat a couple of hours later. We’d been talking about everything and yet nothing of importance, I’d drank more tea in one afternoon than I had done in the past three months and strangely enough, I found that I liked this. It wasn’t as exhausting as I expected to keep up my mask, since I only lied about my job and everything that had to do with it. It was actually quite nice to have a friend.

And that was exactly the thing that scared me. John Watson couldn’t be my friend. I couldn’t care for him - I shouldn’t care for him. If Holmes turned out to be alive, I had to be able to shoot him between the eyes right there and then, without feeling bad afterwards. I’d never felt bad after shooting someone before, and I was going to make sure that this time wasn’t any different.

***

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’d really appreciate it if you joined me.”

I rolled my eyes; John wouldn’t be able to see anyway, since we were talking over the phone. “I just don’t see the point. You’ve gone there countless amounts of times without me - I mean, I’m convinced you have. Why would today be any different?”

John took a moment longer than normal to reply. “It’s been exactly three years today.”

“Oh.” Shit. “Sorry, I suppose.” 

“It’s okay. See you at the graveyard in ten?”

“Yeah, fine. I’ll be there.” I could’ve easily let him go alone if I wanted him to; I could’ve sent someone after him to keep an eye on everything. But, somehow, I couldn’t do that. He needed me there, so ten minutes later, I was standing in front of the graveyard with my hands in my pockets, waiting for the ex-soldier to show up.

John looked miserable. Although I had been able to distract him from his loss in the past six months, the pain had come back twice as hard. I didn’t even need to ask him to be sure of that. He said nothing as we walked to the familiar headstone, his pace steady but with an ever so slight limp visible.

He didn’t have any flowers, presents or anything else to put in front of the stone. He just stood there, staring at the eternal resting place of his closest friend. I didn’t really understand what he felt when he was there, but I was convinced that it must’ve been terrible.

I stayed on his side for the first few minutes, until he subtly gestured that he wanted some time alone. He started muttering some words to the cold marble as soon as I turned my back to him, and started to walk in the direction of Charlie’s grave. Started to, because at that moment, something else caught my attention.

The face disappeared behind a tree as soon as I made eye-contact, but it was already too late. I knew who that was. The face was too familiar be mistaken. Carefully, I walked up to the tree and quickly grabbed the man behind him by the collar.

Holmes immediately started to struggle, but I was more experienced than he was. He tried to pull the gun he was carrying, but I took it from his hands and pressed it to his neck. “Don’t move and I won’t hurt you,” I said calmly.

The dark-haired man did what he was told, but the expression on his face was as hateful as it was before. “If you dare to hurt him, I will personally kill you.”

“Hurt him?” I looked over at John, who was still standing in front of the grave, face downwards. “No, I don’t think so.”

Holmes frowned and followed my gaze. My grip on him became firmer, but he didn’t try to escape; he only looked at me, then to John and back to me. He blinked a few times, before the puzzlepieces in his mind suddenly clicked in the right place.

“You used him,” he hissed. “You played the role as supporting friend just so he would trust you.”

I smirked. “Clever. No wonder Jim was so obsessed with you.” Holmes tried to escape, but I only pushed him back against the tree. “It worked instantly, my little trick. Oh, how desperate he was.”

I wasn’t sure why I was saying this; at least fifty percent of it was bluffed or lied, but I still wanted him to think this was the truth. He almost seemed to swallow it, but when I made the mistake of shooting another glance in John’s direction, Holmes realised that there was more going on.

A grin flashed over his expression. “So, here I am. Alive. You know what you should do, Moran. Take the gun and shoot him. You’re not even true friends, after all,” he simply said. “Come on, kill the man that has come the closest to a real friend.”

A sudden swell of anger started to boil inside me. For an unknown reason (or actually, a reason I unfortunately knew far too well), Holmes’ words cut deep. I knew exactly what he was doing, but I couldn’t help myself but to play along with his little mind game. I pressed the gun firmer against his throat, not knowing what to say for a moment, until the words suddenly spat out of my mouth.

“No, I think I know something better. Why shouldn’t I kill you myself? You were supposed to be dead, after all. Just like Jim. You were supposed to be ove-”

My gaze froze on Holmes’ grave. Or actually, on the man standing in front of it. John’s position had barely changed, but somehow one little change had put the whole situation in another light. And that one little change was rolling down his cheek, ready to drip off his chin. John Watson -- Captain John Watson, was crying.

“He misses me, you know that just as well as I do. I can make those tears stop rolling, Moran. I know you tried to fix him, but there is no way you can fill up the space I left behind. I can help him,” I heard Holmes say. My grip on him slowly started to get looser and looser, but I didn’t notice, until he suddenly pulled himself free and pointed my own gun in my direction.

“Listen to me. When you go back to him, I don’t want you to speak about this. Don’t say a word about me being alive. Do you hear me?”

Although his grip on my throat was rather firm, my words were loud and clear. “And what if I do? You wouldn’t harm him, neither would you be able to get me.”

Holmes smirked. “Oh, no. I’ll tell him that you weren’t his friend, but that you were supposed to kill him. That you faked everything to keep an eye on him, to make stalking him a bit easier. Of course, he doesn’t have to know that you really grew fond of him.”

Several seconds passed before he let me go. One last hateful look was shared, before I turned around and walked back.

The traces of tears on his cheeks was the first thing I noticed when I came back to John. He looked at me with red, teary eyes. “You ready to go?”

Suppressing the urge to look around, I nodded. “Yeah. You?”

Subconsciously touching Holmes’ headstone, John nodded as well. “Ready.”

***

It’d been two months since I saw John for the last time at the graveyard. Only a few days after that, the big news was on the front page; Sherlock Holmes had come back to life. He and his partner, John Watson, had been caught doing the shopping together and the whole of London had been turned upside down by the news. Reliable sources informed me that they looked happy together.

I only got one text of the doctor afterwards. ‘ _Sherlock told me everything. I’d say you’re pathetic, but I think you already know that, deep down. JW_ ’ That was the last thing I heard from John Watson, addressed to me personally.

I only realised when I started to walk his route years later, every day at ten past eight, that I’d never be fully able to forget him.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know Sebastian Moran isn't actually Australian in the books. But, since he hasn't appeared in the series yet, I decided that it couldn't do so much harm. Hopefully that detail didn't annoy you too much.


End file.
